<a href=www.vheadline.com>Venezuela's Electronic News Posted: Monday, June 23, 2003 By: David Coleman

Following up on a bilateral Brazil-Venezuela Enterprise Meeting in Manaus (Brazil), the Venezuelan Guayana Corporation (CVG) has submitted defined proposals for commercial and industrial exchange in hydroelectric power, iron & steel, aluminum, forestry, utilities and tourism sectors.

Some 400 Venezuelan and Brazilian businessmen had met in Manaus to thrash out details work and project achievements, including the second bridge over the Rio Orinoco ... 60 % has already been completed in a joint Venezuelan-Brazilian venture and is on-schedule for completion by the second half  of 2004.

Venezuelan- Brazilian Chamber of Commerce president Jose Francisco Marcondes explains that a Guayana Steel project aims to produce 1 million metric tonnes of especial iron for the automotive industry and expresses satisfaction over the quality and quantity of results from the Manaus meeting with representatives from Venezuela's Bolivar State and Brazil's Amazonas region ... "we feel a certain amount of cohesion between both nations and we have high hopes for exchange possibilities in agriculture, agro-industrial, tourism and the metal-mechanic sector where our focus is on each region's potential to provide raw materials and technology."

<a href=www.vheadline.com>venezuela's Electronic News Posted: Monday, June 23, 2003 By: David Coleman

The Venezuelan-Israeli Chamber of Finance and Israel's Ambassador Arie Tenne have submitted a project proposal to the Venezuelan Guayana Corporation (CVG) to open up a diamond marketing exchange in Ciudad Guayana.  CVG president, Major General (ret.) Francisco Rangel Gomez says the initiative to establish a diamond marketing center in association with a diamond carving and polished school will be strengthened with an estimated investment of $14 million.

Israeli Embassy representative Carlos Sequera Yepez and Venezuelan-Israeli Chamber director Salomon Cohen say that a team integrated by Rangel Gomez, CVG mining vice president John Madero and CVG-Minerven resident Franqui Patines “are prepared to take up the challenge presented by such a project start as the diamond marketing center.“

The diamond center will provide added local value to raw material, and will support infrastructure planning for diamond industry development to avoid illegal trading, establish competitive prices, create regional employment opportunities and contribute greatly to foreign currency revenues.

• The project also contemplates technical assistance for small diamond companies and the integration of gold and diamond industries for jewelry manufacturing.

Rangel Gomez says the state-owned CVG heavy industry conglomerate will support investment projects for Guayana region development and regional welfare projects within the ambit of national interests ... a commission will be formed to evaluate proposals and feasibility in parallel with a similar project submitted by India's DGDC Corporation ... “the CVG aims to choose projects and investments that guarantee the best conditions for Venezuela, within sustainable exploitation parameters.”

<a href=www.vheadline.com>Venezuela's Electronic News Posted: Monday, June 23, 2003 By: David Coleman

In a curiously worded weekend press release, Vancouver-based Vannessa Ventures (VVV) has signaled that it believes the Venezuelan Supreme Tribunal of Justice (TSJ) has recognized its legal standing in a lengthy conflict in which it claims that its US$50 purchase of Placer Dome (PDG) interests in the Las Cristinas 4, 5, 6 & 7 gold mine development is somehow valid.  In actual fact, the VVV super-hype is based on a TSJ preliminary move to submit Mineras Las Cristinas (MINCA) evidence against what it claims to have been the "unilateral cancellation" of a previously-held joint venture work contract.

Vannessa claims the court has ordered an inspection of Las Cristinas after June 17 decision which ruled inadmissible an objection by the Venezuelan Guayana Corporation (CVG) to an inspection of the Las Cristinas concession to review claimed damage done to infrastructure after the CVG had moved to legally rescind the MINCA contract and to award an exclusive operating contract to Toronto headquartered Crystallex International.

Vannessa claims that Las Cristinas has been invaded by over a thousand small-scale miners using hydraulic pumps to remove large quantities of surface gold.

The CVG argues that MINCA has no right to request any inspection since it had no further interest in Las Cristinas where MINCA says it had begun its own inspection, with independent assessors, three days before the CVG moved to take legal control of the property in November, 2001.

Flying a kite for North American stock market investors, the weekend-released Vannessa Ventures press release goes on to insist that an eventually positive ruling for MINCA would reverse the effects of the CVG cancellation of the MINCA/CVG Las Cristinas contract and somehow restore ownership to over the 11 million ounces gold deposit and invalidate any subsequent agreements entered into by the CVG.

In further hype, Vannessa Ventures claims that the CVG has misled the public by stating that a probe by a parliamentary investigation team into the Las Cristinas/CVG/Crystallex/MINCA affair has ended in support for the CVG ... "when the official 8-month investigation by a sub-commission of the Controller's Commission of the National Assembly, requested the cancellation of the CVG/CRYSTALLEX contract, a congressman and strong supporter of the CVG/CRYSTALLEX relationship, Sr. Luis Velasquez Alvaray, managed by political means to replace several commission members, suppress the official investigation by tabling his own report.  Velasquez Alvaray declared to the press on May 27, 2003, that his report was approved by all members of the Controller's Commission and that the investigation was completed and closed. Several members of Congress, as well as the President of the Official Investigating Commission have objected to the replacement document which was not sanctioned by Congress and did not deal with irregularities in the CVG/Crystallex contract. Discussions are ongoing."

"MINCA for its part is requesting that the Attorney General's Office investigate the Velasquez Alvaray/CVG report for irregularities since its content is damaging to MINCA due to false and misrepresented information ... Velasquez Alvaray presented a report in October, 2001, which was produced without the participation of MINCA, did not meet the requirements and criteria for a Congressional Report, and was, therefore, annulled by Congress."

For further information please go to: ttp://www.vheadline.com/search.asp where you may enter "Las Cristinas" and select "Exact phrase" to search in "Everywhere" on the drop-down list.

Alternatively select GOLD from our left navigation bar.

<a href=www.vheadline.com>Venezuela's Electronic News Posted: Sunday, June 22, 2003 By: Roy S. Carson

Venezuela's National Executive is studying legal options associated with the rescinding of dozens of mining concessions for gold and precious metals awarded to corrupt political interests at home and abroad by previous governments.

Speaking from the Miraflores Presidential Palace in Caracas on his weekly 'Alo Presidente" radio/TV chat show, President Hugo Chavez Frias said "there is a group of people who have mining concessions and who in reality have no connection with Venezuela ... some of the concessions are gargantuan, several hundred thousand hectares in size ... they come on a visit once every so often, or they are represented by front men ... corrupt businessmen and politicians of the 4th Republic who live in luxury abroad."

Accompanied on the nationwide broadcast by Energy & Mines (MEM) Minister Rafael Ramirez and other top government officials, Chavez Frias said his government is dealing with the question as a matter of urgency and is expected to make a policy statement shortly.

The move is seen as the latest in a series of judicial and economic reforms to be introduced by the Chavez Frias government in its efforts to kick-start the nation's mining industry which has remained virtually undeveloped for the greater part of three decades since nationalization in 1976.  Rights to mineable resources remain within the gift of the Venezuelan government, but the update reforms seek to regulate a previous system where concessions to mine for diamonds, gold and other precious metals had been handed out in hugely corrupt deals to powerful political and economic interests at home and abroad.

Reuters, 06.20.03, 6:45 PM ET

CARACAS, Venezuela, June 20 (Reuters) - Venezuela's Siderurgica del Orinoco (Sidor), the largest steel maker in the Andean region, cut its debt by half to $700 million with a restructuring deal signed Friday with the government and private banks.

The Sidor deal increases the state's share in the steel maker from 30 percent to 40.3 percent to capitalize more than half of its debt with the government. The firm was privatized in 1997 and acquired by the Amazonia Consortium.

Under the agreement, the consortium -- including Mexico's Hylsamex <HYLSAMXB.MX> and Tamsa <TAMSA.MX>, Argentina's Siderar <SID.BA>, Usiminas <USIM3.SA> of Brazil and Venezuela's Sivensa <SVS.CR> -- reduced its share from 70 percent to 59.79 percent, state and Sidor officials said.

"Changes were made on the financing side to restructure the debt around 54 percent to $700 million and... also to reform the state's participation," Francisco Rangel, president of the state mining consortium Corporacion Venezolana de Guayana (CVG), told Reuters.

"This is manageable debt, debt that brings guarantees for shareholders, but that also allows for better technology, and allows for investment," he said.

Completing the debt restructuring for Venezuela's largest private exporter took 11 months from the signing of the deal in July 2002 between Amazonia Consortium, Venezuela's development bank, CVG, Citibank, Deutsche Bank and four local banks.

The president of Sidor board of directors Maritza Izaguirre told Reuters that the government capitalized half of Sidor debt with the state and refinanced the other half over 15 years with a interest rate Libor plus 1.75 points.

Izaguirre said banks had pooled Sidor debt and bought at a discount another $133.5 million in the company.

The state's participation will diminish later with the completion of the transfer of 20 percent of Sidor shares to employees as laid out in the privatization process.

Sidor's financing difficulties worsened with the slide in global demand and prices in steel and also the impact of the deep domestic recession. Venezuela's economy contracted by a record 8.9 percent last year.

The firm produces on average about 3.5 million tonnes of liquid steel every year and manufactures finished goods from pellets to sheet and long materials.